The Fed is the biggest enemy of this economy. In fact, Ben Bernanke, as far as I'm concerned, he's public enemy No. 1. We're never going to have a recovery while this guy's in charge.

People should have an escape valve for their money, their assets. If you have substantial financial assets, the government is going to confiscate the purchasing power of those assets and spend it.

Printing money is merely taxation in another form. Rather than robbing citizens of their money, government robs their money of its purchasing power.

Yes, when they're buying there are more buyers in the market and that's supportive of the price. The more buyers you have, the firmer the price is going to be. When central banks were selling it was a headwind the market had to overcome. Now it's a tailwind that central banks are joining the buyers.

Fifty-dollar oil is just another stop on the road to much higher crude prices.

A federal bailout would spare California from having to make spending cuts needed to bring its budget into balance. The matter has become urgent since California voters rejected several tax-hiking ballot initiatives. Rather than taking the vote as a signal to dramatically curtail spending, the state turned to the feds. If they get a free pass, the politicians can avoid fixing any of their past mistakes or preparing California for the future.

It can be argued that the U.S. brokerage and investment banking industry has transformed the modern American stock market into nothing more than a mechanism for transferring wealth from shareholders to management.